


A Full and Clear Light

by supervillainesses



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Animated Universe, DCU (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics)
Genre: F/F, it's gay idk what else to say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:11:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supervillainesses/pseuds/supervillainesses
Summary: Home has been a foreign concept to Harley Quinn ever since ruining her career to be with Joker. Ivy offers her a hand, but accepting it just isn't in her. Parts of her, parts she thought dead, want Pamela, and when Joker presents a deadly prank, Harley must choose: the man she thought was her big happiness, or the woman who has become her joy?





	

            Blood stained the sink, pinkish streams swirling with the running flow of the faucet, washing away and out of sight. Above head, two of three bulbs in the faux art deco light fixture were out, the third bright, but dull yellow, flickering. The mirror had a diagonal crack, which ran jagged through Harley Quinn’s reflection, distorting her face. She could almost pretend the fractured glass was the cause of her bleeding.

            The gauze wadded tight in her fist was already seeped with blood, but again she dabbed uselessly at her bleeding nose, smearing her face further with red. She forced a smile at her reflection, her bruised and swollen split-lip further bloodying her face. At least her teeth were all there.

            A soft, frantic knocking drew her attention from her sorry state and she hobbled away from the bathroom. She stumbled right over her jester costume, the air sickeningly humid against her skin, making her sports bra, her only article of clothing aside from her hot pink boyshorts, stick to her back.

            Amid all the knocking, she finally managed to lumber herself to the door. She rested heavily against the frame.

            “What’s it to ya?”

            A familiar voice, comfortingly husky, replied. “Let me in, Harl.”

            “Jeez,” Harley huffed and swung the door open, “you’re always askin’ me to do that for ya, Red.”

            In the doorway stood Poison Ivy, in a rumpled t-shirt and shorts, her brilliant red hair haphazardly tied up in a high knot. Her hand was clenched tight around the leather tote on her shoulder, shaking.

            “Lookatcha,” Harley smiled sadly, “all in tears, y’ain’t even the one who’s hurt.”

            Ivy brushed past Harley before the blonde girl could brush her tears away, her expression still angry, despite clearly sobbing. Harley closed the door and slumped back against it as Ivy dumped the contents of her tote onto the stained hotel bed. Most women carried mundane things in their bags; lipsticks, tissues, pens, but not Ivy. Her tote was full of salves, syringes, gauze, pepper spray, bandages, and even more dangerous objects, like a pair of brass knuckles and a butterfly knife. Harley had taught her how to use the last two. Ivy, like Harley, didn’t have the luxury of things that rang of “mundane.” Well, she did have one tube of lipstick, in a shade of dark, poisonous green. Emphasis on poisonous.

            “He’s an animal, Harl.”

            “It was a joke, Red,” Harley forced a laugh, and squinted in confusion. The sound was foreign, like an old woman’s laughter. “He handed me a present for my birthday—”

            “It’s your birthday?”

            “Well,” Harley wrung her hands sheepishly, “last month, but puddin’s forgetful…anyway, he handed me a box, and when I popped it open it popped me in the face.”

            “What popped you?”

            “The boxing glove that came flyin’ out of it. He was mad, though. Apparently it was supposed to keep punching. Puddin’ doesn’t like defective toys.” She moved to the window, staring down at the muggy Gotham night, the misty air dyed primary colors with the neon and streetlights below. “Guess that’s why he got so angry. I didn’t know wing-tipped shoes hurt so bad.”

            “ _I’ll kill him_ ,” Ivy growled.

            “Nah, you won’t.” Harley limped over to her and cupped her freckled cheek in her hand. “Ya don’t wanna see me hurt.”

            Ivy set Harley with a hard stare, her eyes sharp chips of emerald in the dim room. “You’re cruel, Harley.”

            “Maybe I am,” Harley stuck out her tongue, the metallic tang of her blood filling her mouth. “Fix me up, buttercup, I’m prime for the healin’.”

            Harley sat on the end of the bed, hands braced tightly on Ivy’s hips, her fingers digging in each time her redheaded friend so much as touched her skin with the stinging salves, carefully concocted in one of her greenhouse laboratories. She softened her touch each time Harley flinched, but it wasn’t her hands that hurt her; Ivy’s hands had never hurt her before, and probably never would.

            “You’re so gentle,” Harley clumsily mumbled, her lips pleasantly numb from Ivy’s medicine. “Like a mom.”

            Ivy pulled back from Harley, her expression suddenly empty, different from her usual expressions of coldness or mild contempt. “Are you bleeding anywhere else?”

            Harley looked down at her exposed state; her current outfit left almost nothing to the imagination. She wondered if Ivy had even really looked at her. She couldn’t blame her. She didn’t much want to look at herself either. Perhaps it was fear, but Harley didn’t flatter herself enough to think Ivy could be afraid, certainly not on her behalf. Honestly, she wasn’t sure Ivy could even fear at all.

            As though reading Harley’s expression, Ivy pulled out the gauze. “Lie back, I’ll check if anything’s broken.”

            Harley lowered herself onto the mattress, leveraging her weight with her elbows. She’d been standing ever since she’d picked herself up off the concrete at Joker’s— _their_ hideout, and to suddenly lie back down was like each pain was a new injury. Ivy sat beside her, saturating a gauze pad with rubbing alcohol. She didn’t pull her hand away from Harley’s when she reached out to lace their fingers together.

            “How did you get away?” Ivy’s voice was hard as she dabbed at Harley’s skin. “Last time he did this to you I didn’t see you for months, until you were dragged into Arkham.”

            “How do I ever get away?” Harley’s laugh started to sound a bit like her own, barely. Her throat hurt. She couldn’t remember if her throat was a point of contact between herself and Joker’s wingtip shoe. “I took a bruise-snooze—”

            “Don’t call it that.”

            “—and when I woke up everyone was gone,” she went on. “He even took one of my cellphones, the one with most minutes on it, too. I got an Uber to take me out this way; couldn’t walk.”

            “An Uber driver saw you in your costume, beaten and bloodied, and still drove you to a seedy location like this?”

            “Seedy? Our little hideaway?” Harley snorted. “Red, you’ve obviously never taken an Uber in Gotham.”

            Ivy swung her leg over Harley’s, hovering over her and gently palpating her ribs with her slender fingers. Harley bit her lip, cutting off a groan. Her cheeks were flushed, her body growing warm from the pain.

            “Nothing broken,” Ivy concluded, a ribbon of red hair falling free of her messy bun, “but definitely bruised.”

            “Babe, I know that. My bruises have bruises, oy.” Harley groaned. “Did ya bring me a change of clothes?”

            Ivy gestured to a rolled up shape, wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. “I need to bandage you before you can even think about getting dressed. Some of these scrapes need to breathe, so no getting dressed just yet.”

            “Ew, I don’t wanna sleep in my undies on these nasty sheets, Red.”

            Ivy ruffled Harley’s hair and got up from the bed. “I’ll get us some clean bedding even if I have to kill a man to do it,” she was serious, “if I’m not back in ten minutes, go ahead and jump in the shower. Ordinarily, I’d say leave the medicine on for five but…”

            Harley covered her eyes with her forearm. “I’m in shit-shape, ain’t I, Red?”

            Ivy turned from the door, finally an emotion in her eyes. Sadness. “Nothing that I can’t fix, Harl.”

            She left, off in search of maid staff that was hard to find at this place. Harley clenched and unclenched her jaw, glad it wasn’t dislocated or broken. She tried to remember the name of the hotel. The Marigold, she thought. A bit cheerful for Gotham, but in name only, at least now. The wallpaper and old furnishings suggested that the building was once bright, even golden, something like where the upper crust would hang out of _The Great Gatsby_. Time, it seemed, was capable of making even the most brilliant things tarnished and ugly.

            The first time she and Ivy had met up here, in a room a floor down and three doors to the left, was forever engrained in her memory. The first time Joker had laid a hand on her was the first time Harley got a concussion. Even Bratgirl had never given her such a wallop. Ivy kept her awake the whole night, reading to her from Harley’s favorite magazines while Harley sobbed. She knew she couldn’t sleep with a concussion, and Ivy didn’t let her fall asleep for even a moment. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had been so concerned for her, or at least pretended they didn’t want her to die.

            “Took a little longer than expected,” Ivy’s voice was strained with frustration as she struggled to get through the door, holding a big folded lump of soft pink bedding. “First the staff tried to tell me all their bedding is clean. Doesn’t explain the inch of dust over the stuff they already have on the bed. I ended up having to pull the bedding out of this gigantic washing machine and dry it all myse—Harley, are you crying?”

            She didn’t understand why, but tears were flowing down her face, hot and salty. They stung at her wounds, somehow just as painful as receiving them in the first place. She reached out for Ivy, and, confused, Ivy filled her arms.

            “Does it hurt that badly?” She smoothed Harley’s bangs out of her face. “C’mon, baby, into a nice warm shower, then to bed.”

            Ivy helped Harley to the bathroom again, frowning at the blood smeared along the sink, as if it were a new sight for her. It wasn’t; Harley knew that much. Ivy helped her out of her sports bra and panties. In another situation, Harley would have covered herself up, insisted upon doing it herself, but she didn’t have much fight in her. She did have a pang of self-consciousness—she hadn’t been eating well lately, or rather she hadn’t been eating much at all. She thought of her skin-and-bones frame compared to Ivy’s voluptuous figure and was a mixture of jealous and excited; she had considered her friend’s nude form before, once or twice on a lonely night. Thought of Ivy’s warm, freckled skin pressed up against her, holding her hand and smoothing her hair and keeping her company on long nights, when her anxieties and old panics came back at her and ate her from the roots. Always soothing, never judging. It wasn’t entirely accurate, but in her dreams, waking or no, it was her world to create.

            The hot water was barely comprehensible, pure algebraic nonsense that her befuddled mind couldn’t keep track of. She realized it more when leaving it, when Ivy tucked her out of the thick steam. Ivy toweled Harley down and helped her wrap in a robe that was surprisingly toasty; Ivy must have put it in with the other laundry, anticipating a way to seal Harley in comfort. Always thinking ahead, that Ivy.

            Once helped into bed and tucked away under a clean blanket, Harley turned to her side, staring into Pamela once she’d taken up a spot beside her.

            “You don’t deserve this, Harley.”

            “I don’t deserve anythin’, Red.”

            “You certainly deserve more than the cruel, cold world he warped your mind into thinking you were meant for.”

            “I was meant for this. Thievin’ and lyin’ and cheatin’ and—”

            “Beatin’?” Ivy mocked Harley’s voice. “Really? Were you _meant_ for beating, Harley? Do you really think that?”

            Harley was so shocked that her words crumbled away, becoming as dust. “P-Puddin’ doesn’t mean to—”

            “Just because he misses sometimes doesn’t mean the other times don’t count, Harley.”

            “Jeez, Ivy,” Harley wriggled onto her opposite side, turning her back on her. “You can really turn a night from bad to worse. Besides…even if Mr. J is bad as you say, it’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to go.”

            “You would.”

            “Huh?”

            Ivy’s weight shifted and suddenly her hand was planted in front of Harley, boxing her in between her arm and body. Harley shivered at the warmth of her.

            “You could stay,” said Ivy, “with me. For as long as you needed. As long as you’d like.”

            “Feh,” Harley laughed weakly, “you’re asking me to choose you over Mr. J?”

            “No,” Ivy said. “I’m asking you to choose yourself, over Joker.”

            “Myself? What are you—” Harley rolled onto her back, her face just breathtaking inches from Ivy’s, and in the moment it was as though the freckles smattered across the canvas of Ivy’s cheeks were clusters of stars “—crazy?”

            “Yes,” Ivy caressed her swollen cheek with a slow trace of the back of her finger, “but not in the way you think.”

            “But why?” Harley screwed her eyes shut, trying to will out the image of Ivy’s face, full of something she’d never seen before, in those half-lidded eyes still so sharp and green, in those full lips flushed and rosy. Concern. Worry. Her heart was hammering away. “Why would you want me around? I’d just get in your way.”

            “You would,” Ivy said plainly, “but I wouldn’t care. Not in any way that mattered. Look at me, Harl. Open your eyes.”

            Harley opened them once more, and found Ivy’s constellation-smattered cheeks were now streaked with tears, the trails silver like shooting stars in the night.

            “Harleen,” Ivy whispered, “you’re so cruel. Don’t make me say it out loud. Kiss me.”

            Harley surged up with a wave of energy she didn’t think she could have, her fingers tangling in that red hair she’d always admired, always wanted to push her hands through and wind up hopelessly lost. Ivy’s lips were soft as petals, her kiss sweet like nectar. She was a rare flower that no man could touch, that no man could taste, only Harley, only she was immune. She could see it now, the weight of that fact, the meaning of the action, just what she meant to Ivy.

            Ivy’s hand—gentle, gentle, so gentle, as though Harley were a delicate plant in her garden—traced her neck, cupping it to deepen the kiss.

            She thought of Joker. She thought of the forcible kisses. The ones she’d had to whinge out of him. The ones he’d forced onto her. The ones where he’d taken his hands, rough and blocky and strong, and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed—

            Harley broke the kiss with a gasp, flinging her head to the side to stare at the wall as hot pricks of tears forced their way out of her eyes. Ivy sat back, quiet a moment, in a way that was palpable.

            “I shouldn’t have—”

            “It ain’t you,” Harley wiped her nose with the heel of her palm, “it’s me. And him. The both of us. I don’t know what to do.”

            Ivy carefully placed her hand over Harley’s, stroking her fingers with her thumb.

            “Do you hate me?” She asked.

            “No.”

            “Do you like me?”

            “Yes.”

            “Do you want me?”

            “I dunno.”

            “Do you believe that I want you?”

            “…Yes.”

            “Do you want to live with me?”

            “I dunno, I dunno, I dunno.”

            Pamela squeezed her hand. “Is it all right to want you?”

            Harley paused a long moment, but Harleen answered. “Yes.”

            Carefully, she turned her head, and found Ivy smiling serenely, as though that was enough for her to live on for a thousand years.

            “It’s strange,” said Ivy, “wanting someone and not being wanted back. Not being able to force it back. Suppose I’m a fool for you, Harley. Must be. Anyone else, and I would have told them to leave me alone years ago. Might’ve even killed them over even half the things you put me through, the things you need from me. I’ve never met someone that didn’t deplete me of everything, before you. It’s the opposite, somehow. Each time you need me, I feel the fountain of myself refilling, instead of running dry. What a foolish way to live, a wonderfully painful way to live. To pine like this. No wonder men bleed themselves dry for me when I will it; there’s no feeling more sublime.”

            Long moments passed, and they came together, as they always did. Harley was always pulled toward Ivy in one way or another. She was a cosmic body, with her own stellar gravity, and Harley was nothing more than a satellite shooting past, caught in her orbit. She buried her pale, beaten face into the fragrant comfort of Ivy’s soft neck, clinging, clinging, clinging.

            “I’ll think about it,” said Harley slowly, feigning sleepiness. “Living with you.”

            Ivy’s arms squeezed tight around Harley, and the blonde jester could imagine in her mind’s eye a wicked sort of jealousy on her friend’s face. She would be lying if she said she didn’t know Ivy in part hated Joker because he had hold over Harley in ways she didn’t, and would be lying even more if she said that knowledge didn’t thrill her. To be wanted, desired; it was a dangerous game to Harley. She felt a flash of guilt, because she never knew the little game would take them this far. And at the moment, she didn’t hate it.

            “I have a little house, just outside Gotham,” said Ivy, quietly into Harley’s hair. “It was abandoned when I found it, but I’ve made it my own. It’s small, and soft pink from years of the sun bleaching the red paint, and it’s nearly always in bloom. I’d love it to be flowering year round, but even I can’t hold Mother Nature at bay. There’s a little wooden fence, and it’s close to a quaint little town, with its own little suburb. I don’t go there much, not when the city needs me to cleanse it so often, but whenever I’m inside it, it feels like home. It makes me feel like I have roots.”

            “Sounds like ya wanna give up crime.”

            “Oh, absolutely not, I’m talking about my oasis in the desert of Gotham gloom. Even if you were to join me there, there’s no way I’d give up a lifestyle of getting what I want when I want.”

            Harley chuckled and closed her eyes, her long lashes just brushing against Ivy’s chest. She shivered a little at how Ivy’s skin pebbled to gooseflesh at such a miniscule touch.

            “It’d be nice,” Harley muttered, “to have a home again.”

            “You’ll have it someday, I’ll see to it.” Ivy’s words were starting to become heavy with fatigue. “If not with me, then with someone else, or no one else. You don’t need someone to make you feel you’re home, Harl, but mine would only feel more complete with you in it.”

            Ivy fell asleep first, Harley safely stowed away in the cradle of her arms, in her warm side. Ivy was good at sleeping, as though she wasn’t able to stay up long after sundown. It made sense; plants were meant to thrive under the light of the sun. She smelled like sunshine, too. Like lavender and grassy fields, childhood days of baking golden under the heat of the sun. Harley imagined for a short moment that she was small, a child, something delicate to be nurtured and sheltered, something vulnerable and full to bursting with love. She wondered what Ivy would look like in the morning, with the sunrise streaming in through the fractured hotel window. How golden she would look, how rosy and new.

            But she would never get the chance to see, because Ivy slept like the dead. She never felt Harley slipping out of her arms, just before dawn. Never heard her packing up her things, cursing as she walked about in pain. Never knew Harley left, until she woke up late the next morning, to a cold and empty bed, to a note which merely read:

 

_I’m sorry – Harleen_

 

***

            Truthfully, she never expected her to stay. Choking on her own foolishness, Ivy pulled herself out of the bed and over to the dirty window across the room. The parking lot three flights down was basically empty, only a few cars to be seen. No head of shining blonde hair bobbing in the sunlight, step light and springy as she carried a tray of coffee in hand. Of course she was gone. _Gone_ gone. No one had ever stayed by Pamela’s side before, why would Harley be any different.

            The blood-stained sink in the bathroom nearly made her gag. She had spilled the blood of many a man before, but to see so much of Harley’s smeared about like finger paint made her nauseated. The tightening of her throat from the sickening sensation was like that of wanting to scream but having no voice. But she didn’t have one, not to Harley, not about him, and certainly not about her well-being. Hardening her expression in the mirror, she took her hair down and situated it in the way she liked, thinking for what she promised was the last time if Harley even knew what it felt like to be looked after anymore. Each time was always the last time.

            Gathering up her things, Ivy found a note on the pillow Harley’s head had laid on the previous night. It still smelled of her, of something inexplicably sugary-sweet and the harsh metallic of blood, always blood, either hers or another’s.

            She read it and laughed. Fat lot of good it did her now. She paused at the door of the room, thinking only absently of how she could leave without paying the room fee. There was a chance, slim and slight, that Harley would come back here, looking for Ivy. Looking for a soft place to fall.

            Pamela pocketed the note and, as she had done on so many occasions, turned her back and closed the door on another possibility too good to be true.

 

***

           

            She spent the first night apart from Ivy in the spot that drove her toward her to start with. Of course she knew Joker and his cronies wouldn’t have stayed in the same hideout for long. They moved every few days between locations. Didn’t want the Bat finding them before they could wreak at least a little havoc. She lay in a ball on the cold concrete floor of the abandoned warehouse; in the position she fell to when Joker first knocked the wind out of her.

            She hadn’t slept a moment beside Ivy, she couldn’t. Her mind was burning, just like her heart, just like her body. She wondered if Ivy could hear her heart pounding beside her, feel it against her as Harley pressed herself into her, her face buried in her neck, breathing in the sweet smell of her hair. How long had Harley craved softness? Warmth? Joker was all angles; she had convinced herself long ago it was a sign of his strength, his sturdiness, his ability to keep her safe. She never thought she could find those things in full in a warm, freckled body, in a heart she thought cared for no one. Though she’d thought the same of him, too.

            The thoughts clung to her like cobwebs, wrapping themselves even around her dreams. She dreamt of soothing hands, washing over her body in waves, skin warm and comforting as spring sunlight. A voice, raspy and sweet, wool and honey. Ivy’s voice, saying her name. Just her name, over and over, like it was the only word she knew.

            _Harleen. Harleen. Harleen._

The dream shifted, as dreams do, tendrils of the first still tangled around her. A bland white room, void of anything but two chairs. One, she sat in, and in the other, she also sat in. Rather, a fragment of herself, a memory, a reflection, a ghost. In a lab coat and pumps, hair neatly done up in a bun, glasses spotless and skirt free of wrinkles. Harleen Quinzel sat across from Harley Quinn, clipboard in her hands, eyes set on her disdainfully. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

            Static overtook her, and Harley awoke, rising from the floor and shaking the cobwebs of her dreams from her mind.

 

***

            The Iceberg Lounge was packed as always on a Saturday night. The sound of the crowd was over Ivy’s back from behind as she sat at the bar. Thick cigar smoke clogged the air overhead, nearly sucking the joy out of the gin and tonic burning its way along her throat. She looked on in disdain as a few of Penguin’s lackeys suckled on a pack of illegal Cuban cigarillos, polluting her hair. One of the men caught her disdainful gaze, and in a way only alcohol could make a man feel invincible, he latched his eyes onto the the high slit of her black strapless dress and mimed something obscene at her.

            An arm thrust out between her in the men a few seats down, stopping her from standing at full height.

            “Hey,” said Two-Face in his gravelly voice, “ya fellas might wanna rethink what yer thinkin’. This gal is trouble in three-inch pumps.”

            The young man who had pantomimed at Pamela looked ready to argue, but took one look at Harvey’s face and went back to minding his own business.

            “I didn’t need the help, Harv.” Ivy huffed, toying with the wedge of lime on the rim of her glass.

            “Yeah, well, wouldn’t kill ya to say thanks.” He groaned and seated himself in the stool beside her, stretching his back with a melody of crackling pops singing out from his bones. “Well, knowing you, it might. Anyway, I know better than anyone that kid was barking up the wrong tree. You don’t go for his type.”

            Ivy smiled coyly. “And what type is that?”

            “Male.”

            Ivy narrowed her eyes and raised her glass toward him.

            “Unusual to see ya without Quinn,” he said after giving the bartender his order. “Trouble in paradise?”

            Ivy said nothing. Suddenly her bitter drink was only bitterer.

            “Went back to him again?” He asked knowingly, accepting the martini with a wink at the bartender, making the man blush. “If she was half as bad as just the one pic you sent me made it seem I would’ve thought that’d be enough to at least make her hesitate. What kind of hold does that bastard hold over that kid?”

            “It’s not him,” said Ivy, “it’s her. Joker has all the charisma of a stomped slug but she’s able to imagine him into a prince. I can cure nearly any malady, but I don’t know how to mend the heart of a lovesick fool. If I did, I’d have used it on myself long ago, keep myself from falling folly to the one and only Harley Quinn.”

            “Huh,” Two-Face muttered into his drink, “that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say the L-word.”

            “I didn’t say lesbian.”

            Harvey choked on his drink, laughing in that dry way of his. “I meant _love_ , ya leggy cactus. Never thought I’d see the day. And ya fall for the only broad in Gotham who wouldn’t fall at your feet for the chance to step on them.”

            “Harley doesn’t need any more stepping on,” Pamela said quietly as she swirled her drink in the glass. “She’s the one thing in Gotham that deserves to bloom.”

            “What about you?” Two-Face raised his good brow, the expression lost in a visual interpretation of shock as his other brow was permanently always in an upward arch, but the action conveyed the sentiment.

            Ivy merely smiled wanly.

            The phone in her clutch on the bar counter buzzed against the polished marble surface. She undid the clasp and looked at the notification. A photo sent from Harley Quinn.

            “It’s her, right?” Harvey said with certainty. “You’re real transparent when it comes to her, petal. Your face lit up like a Christmas tree when ya looked at the screen.”

            She turned off the display without opening the message. Harley could sweat a little, after what she’d done to her. Besides, she had her read receipts on anyway.

            Ivy and Harvey spent the next hour chatting about this and that, though mostly Harvey supplied her with general intel of the vague minutia of gang activity she kept her nose out of. In her line of work, it was important to be at least partially informed. She kept her thoughts trained on Harvey, but every now and then her thoughts would drift off with her gaze toward the phone in her bag.

            She didn’t open the message until she was outside the Lounge. The night had turned cold, and even with Harvey’s borrowed suit jacket—which she promised to return because, frankly, it was tacky—she was shivering. Harvey had already driven off in his own car.

            The photo was of Joker, crowbar in hand and a surgeon’s mask over his mouth. Blood covered every surface in the photograph, including the slim body in the black and red jester costume, her long blond hair stained red with—

            A message came over seconds after the read receipt went through.

            _Meet us in the dark side of Robinson Park_

            The bastard had the nerve to finish it with a winky-face. Ivy threw her phone into the passenger side seat of the car, and sped off into the last hour of sunlight in Gotham’s skyline.

 

***

 

            They’d left behind all of her things. In the only room of the warehouse with a window, afternoon light streamed in, illuminating her bags on the floor. They were open and the clothes were strewn all about this way and that. Clearly Joker’s goons had snatched all her money and weapons, even her hammer. Lot of good it would do whoever took it, only Harley knew how to wield it.

            Tears streaming down her face, she gathered up her things, and headed off toward the street, looking up a new ride to take her to the general vicinity of the next hideout. She may not have money, but there was more than one way to get an Uber in Gotham.

            The kid that picked her up didn’t say much, but he did stare at her so much through the rearview mirror that Harley feared he’d end up driving them off the road. She wished it was because she was beautiful, but she knew it was because her body was still splotched in bruises, despite Ivy’s best efforts. When they pulled to a stop at a curb not far from the trail that led to the old carnival spot Joker was sure to be at, he didn’t ask for any payment. He offered only a brief kind smile, and as Harley got out of the backseat, he turned his head away. She spied textbooks piled in the front seat. It was always the nursing majors.

            He drove off, and Harley limped down the old overgrown path to the abandoned carnival grounds recessed in Robinson Park. Once on a time she would have entered the park from the other side, following a steady increase in dense foliage like a fairypath through the woods to get to Ivy’s territory. Ivy hadn’t spent much time there in the past few years. She was tired of Batman or the GCPD trampling onto her gardens without regard for the plants’ lives. Secretly, Harley always thought she’d started opting for more traditional hideouts because sleeping in trees just wasn’t something Harley could get used to. She also selfishly thought that it was because Ivy liked beds, or at least sharing one with her. Always thoughtful, that Red.

            The GCPD never tread on this side of the park. The grass was overgrown and brittle, waist-high as Harley finally broke through the field and onto the old mulch laid down around the rusted over carnival rides. She navigated her way through the usual entrance of the mazelike house of mirrors, but knew before she even halfway made it through that the hideout was empty. There was no sound of life from inside where Joker had paid to extend the small building into an underground passage.

            Maybe she was wrong, but the abandoned carnival was almost always the next base after the warehouse on Abbot and Corner Street. The Bat might have caught onto the routine, like he always did. Mentally, she went over the next logical place to check, but once out she realized the sun was already nearly set. The likelihood of her getting a decent, safe ride in Gotham at this part of town was iffy at best. Maybe she’d try sleeping on one of the rides.

            A terrible scream cut through the air, startling birds out of the surrounding trees and off the abandoned attractions.

            As Harley slowly made her way through the Tunnel of Love, wading through the knee-deep water, she uncovered more and more blood until, finally, the gruesome sight unraveled before her.

            Joker spun toward her, flinging the bloody crowbar to the floor. He was dressed in his boxers and undershirt; his suit was neatly hung up on a nail a few feet away from the mess he’d created. Pinned to the wall crucifix-style was a woman. Dead center of a heart painted into the mural she hung, bloodied and broken, dressed in Harley’s costume and a cheap wig. At her feet was a smashed plaster statue of a chubby angel, splashed in her blood. Cupid had died in this twisted game of love lost. A cry struggled to get out from Harley, but she choked it back.

            “Harley!” He greeted cheerily. “Just the gal I wanted to see! Didn’t think you’d find me so soon, not before I took care of business.”

            “A-Are ya killin’ her, Mr. J?” She tried to suppress her horror, but couldn’t. The sight of herself, but not herself, strung up like a ragdoll threatened to send her into shock.

            “Hm?” He looked at the girl, a hand casually on his hip, as though he’d forgotten she was there. “Oh, I dunno, probably. Most likely. Suppose she would die at the end of all this.”

            “All what?” Hot tears streamed down Harley’s bruised face. “Beatin’ her half to death?”

            “No no no no. This is all for show! For now. See, I needed a way to get your friend out here, Harley. Can’t have you running off to her all the time. Needed you last night, Harl. The heist got canned by Batman, just like half the boys. The other half are at the hideaway at the pier in south Gotham. Can’t risk losing them over a prank for Poison Pammy.”

            “A prank, Mr. J?”

            “Right-a-roonie, schmoopsy,” he moved toward her in a high, long step that made no sense and wrapped a bloody arm around her cold waist. “See, I found out Rocco had pinched your second mobile, before you woke up from your bruise-snooze and ran away from our game the other night, and the whole plan just came together! I sent the picture of me and pretend-you to the plant, and told her where to come running. Took her a long time to read the first message, Harl. She must not care for you very much. Anyway, once she arrives, she’ll come running over to not-you, wanting to fix you up as _always_ , then BANG. She trips the invisible wire, setting off the bomb that’ll go off in a matter of seconds. Just long enough to let her think you two can run away.”

            Harley covered her mouth with her hands. She wanted to vomit.

            “Almost benevolent, Harl. See, this way Pammy gets to think she’s with you at the end of it. And people say I don’t have a heart.”

            “BECAUSE YOU DON’T.”

            Harley could barely comprehend that the words came from her, but once she said her piece there was no stopping her. She turned on Joker with ferocity and screamed and yelled and shouted and wailed, what she wasn’t sure, but everything she said was filled with enough pain and hurt to encompass the last few years struggling to survive at his side.

            When she finished, he went quiet a moment. Just when he drew back his arm to backhand her, a voice broke through the silence of the room.

            “Harley?”

            Joker whipped behind Harley, covering her mouth with his hand and pinning her arms behind her back. He pulled himself and Harley up out of the water and onto the ledge, into a dark corner not far from the escapable side of the fishing wire.

            Pamela waded through the water of the tunnel and fell to her knees at the sight of not-Harley strung up on the wall, tears streaming down her face. She looked odd, in her long black dress and even longer suit jacket. It obviously didn’t belong to her, and it only made her look so unbelievably small. She half wondered if she had ruined a good night for her. Harley tried to fight against Joker’s strength, to get to Red, but was half-paralyzed in shock and the sight of Ivy sobbing, pushing her hands into her hair and breaking down, thinking Harley to be dead.

            Ivy composed herself enough to stand, and moved forward.

            Harley hesitated, but Harleen acted.

            She bit Joker’s hand, releasing her from his hold. “Ivy, no!”

            In a rush of adrenaline, Harley made the choice. Joker tried to grab hold of her from behind, but she bucked him off. She reeled back, stomping him square between his legs, and launching him into the water, his body colliding with the invisible wire he’d planted for Ivy.

            Harley snatched hold of Ivy’s wrist and pulled her onto the ledge, running as fast as their sodden clothes allowed. The bomb ticked down like the winding up of a jack-in-the-box. Just as they crossed the threshold of the carnival entrance, sprinting into the cold blue twilight, the rushing heat of the bomb bashed into them from behind.

            As Harley’s feet left the ground, all she could think of was how nice it was, to die with Ivy’s hand in hers, as everything went black.

 

***

            The white room hummed in a chorus of fluorescent lighting overhead. Through this sound was the ticking of a clock, resounding in even tempo, echoing off the walls. Harley’s vision wouldn’t focus, her line of sight roaming from wall to wall before, finally, settling on the blurry vision before her. She blinked a few times, each one like peeling back a layer of silk before she could see her clearly.

            “Ah,” the ghost spoke, “welcome back, Harley. Shall we continue this session?”

            Harley bolted upward in her chair, but couldn’t stand. She was glued to the spot. No, she was strapped down, tied to the chair. She thrashed against her restraints, letting out a string of curses that would make her mother blush. All the while that infernal ticking persisted, not just a clock on the wall, but the tap of a pen against the wood of a clipboard. What seemed miles off, a round clock, black and white, hung on the wall facing her, all three hands stuck at 12, seeming to loom dead center above the ghost of Harleen Quinzel.

            “That’s the hour you killed me,” said the phantom. Harley was suddenly aware that Harleen’s shirt was red, and not by design, but by a dye of fresh blood, spilling out from the center of her chest, at her heart. “That’s the hour when you murdered me in cold blood. The hour when you set that sick man free. And for what? This half-life?”

            “Jesus they must’ve put me on some sweet meds back in Arkham, I’m trippin’ out of my goddamn mind,” Harley laughed nervously, biting her lip. This had to be a dream, and yet somehow it wasn’t. Dreams don’t hurt. This wasn’t dreaming.

            “You threw away all our hard work, our hopes and dreams. We weren’t happy, but we were surviving, we could’ve made it to our next big happiness, if you’d only given us time.” The seconds not passing on the clock, but still ticking away, reverberated like thunder.

            “I thought he _was_ our—my big happiness.” Harley chuckled bitterly.

            “He fooled us. We should’ve been smarter, we should’ve known. He’s never loved anything.”

            “I know.”

            “Not even us.”

            “I know.”

            “Especially us.”

            “ _I know_.”

            “But even more so, he’s never loved you. What you’ve made yourself to be. You’ve changed so much of yourself for him, tried to mold yourself in his image. Still he doesn’t care. Doesn’t care enough to let you have even one bit of happiness. He tried to murder our happiness tonight like you murdered me. He—”

            “I KNOW. Goddamn, yer a broken record on repeat, lady. No wonder I ‘killed’ ya like ya said. Maybe you should just stay dead. Lot of good you’ll do me. I’m not reachin’ for what I want anymore, had my hand swatted away too many times before I could even touch it. I’m through, ya hear me? Through. No more Red, no more _Dr_. Harleen Quinzel, just me, myself, and I.”

            The lights behind the ghost snapped off in darkness so black it was as though that part of space had disappeared. All that remained was the clock on the wall, ticking, ticking, ticking. The lights behind Harley reflected on Harleen’s glasses, blotting out her eyes.

            “You feel no remorse?” The ghost asked. “No regret for what you’ve done? The life you’ve taken? This murder? This half-suicide?”

            “Ah, shuddup. We weren’t even a good student; we just wanted to get on Oprah.”

            “You have a good heart, Harleen.” The ghost leaned forward, and ceased tapping her pen on the board. “Look at me, see into me and regret, feel pity for something you’ve never allowed yourself to mourn over. Look at yourself, into your heart, and heal.”

            It wasn’t Harleen she was looking at now, but herself. Her own beaten, toughened self, face half-swollen and tears streaming down her eyes. Tears that were running down her own face.

            “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry. For everything I’ve done to you. I let you down. I let us both down. I don’t know what to do, how to fix this. I’m sorry.”

            Her reflection, her counterpart, her conscience, whatever she was, reached out for Harley’s hands and held onto them tight. Harley was no longer bound, but she didn’t feel like running away, not anymore, not ever again.

            “You know what our big happiness is,” the ghost and the room began to dissipate like mist. “Reach for her, Harley. Harley. Harley Harley Harley. _Harleen—”_

***

            “ _Harle_ —”

            Harley’s eyes snapped open to a dim room and a pair of bright green eyes, set in a soft face smattered in freckles, blood, and small scabs.

            Tearfully, Harley reached for her and flung herself up, not caring about the IVs in her arms. She held onto Ivy tightly, never wanting to let go, never wanting to be parted.

            “Take me home,” she sobbed into the crook of her neck. “Take me home, Pamela. I wanna go home with you, to that little pink house with the fence and a garden. Take me home, take me home. I love you, Red. I love you love you love you love you—”

            Ivy cut her off with a kiss, soft and sweet, slow and syrupy. Harley’s lips felt as though they were melting into hers, reshaping themselves against the softness she had long told herself to forget about dreaming of.

            “I can take care of our wounds at my—our place,” said Ivy as she gently removed the catheters from Harley’s arms. “We’re a little singed from Joker’s bomb, but it’s a small price to pay to know that bastard was blown away to kingdom come.”

            “I chose you,” said Harley breathlessly, finding the dirty clothes she’d been wearing in a closet and putting them on, her back to Ivy. She wasn’t sure if she had likewise turned away to give her modesty, but she’d be lying if the thought of those green eyes on her didn’t thrill her. “I didn’t even think about it, I just—he wanted to kill ya, Red. All because—because we—”

            “There will be time for that later,” Ivy groaned. Harley spun at just the right moment to catch a glimpse of her skin, usually smooth, marred by scars from the explosion as she zipped herself into the dress. “Lucky I heal quickly. Hurry, we’ve only got so much time before they come in to check on us.”

            Taking the long train of her dress in her hands, Pamela deftly tore off the majority of it, exposing her long, creamy legs flecked with freckles. Harley swallowed at the sight of them, and how she open a window and swung one over the ledge. She closed her eyes and sighed, and in an instant a tree either grew out of the ground below or grew three sizes too big that day.

            “Red,” Harley marveled, taking her outstretched hand, “you’re amazing.”

            The tree receded into the ground, and hand-in-hand they searched through the parking lot together for an unlocked car they could “borrow.” Honestly, Harley could think of no better first date.

 

***

            They said nothing as Ivy drove, still hand-in-hand as the junky radio played crackly jazz. Every inch of Harley ached and burned, and she was sure it was the same for Ivy, but it hardly seemed to matter, not now. Not when the moon was so full and the night was so young, brimming with promise. With the night air billowing through her hair, Ivy’s fingers laced with hers, her heart felt electric, she was invincible.

            Ivy led her up the walkway of their home, and Harley was overcome with tears by the time she crossed the threshold. The lights snapped on, unveiling a small living space, just a single room with a gas fireplace and sofa, a door which led to a kitchen area, and stairs that led up to a loft. And, true to form, plants overgrown and clinging to the walls, overflowing out of tiny pots and planters scattered about near the windows.

            “Sit, get cozy, I’ll make us some tea and get some treatments ready.” Ivy smiled sadly at the tears in Harley’s eyes, and kissed her teary cheeks. “No more pain tonight, sweet pea. Tonight, you rest.”

            “Heh,” Harley rubbed her eye with the heel of her palm. “Don’t think I’ve done that in ages.”

            She watched Ivy leave through the narrow doorway of the kitchen and hesitated only a moment before following after her. Ivy was unaware of her eyes on her, fixed on how she moved between cabinets and the stove, putting tea in a pot. There was another section of the house which, from Harley’s angle, looked to be a laundry room. When Ivy disappeared in there, Harley waited awkwardly a moment before deciding to just sit like Ivy asked.

            She sat on the floor at the glass coffee table, and stared up at the walls. Through the leaves and branches and tendrils of Ivy’s plants, she could spy some picture frames.

            Moments later, Ivy returned with a bag slung on her shoulder, and two mugs of hot tea in her hands. She handed a cup to Harley, and opened her bag, sliding some red hair behind her ear. She’d changed out of that long dress and into a t-shirt and shorts. She was much easier to be beside like this.

            “Did I uh,” Harley hesitated, her fingers grasped around the mug, “interrupt a good night?”

            “Hardly,” Ivy shook her head. “I just blew off some steam with Harvey at the Iceberg until I got your—Joker’s message. I can heal you now, if you’d like. Does it hurt badly?”

            Harley closed her hand over Ivy’s. “Nah, I just wanna sit for a bit, is that okay? I don’t wanna feel like somethin’ someone’s gotta fix right now. I just wanna be with you, two women, y’know?”

            “But—”

            “Doesn’t hurt that bad,” Harley half-lied. “My heart hurts more than any injury could.”

            Ivy exhaled through her nostrils, and eased beside Harley. The skin of her hands were healing naturally, Harley spied as she cupped her mug in her hands. Her girl was a wonder, a walking marvel.

            “I’m hurting your heart?” Ivy murmured.

            “Oh yeah,” Harley stretched, groaning. “Burning it, stinging it,” she coughed, “like you’re scrubbin’ it clean. I feel…I dunno, raw and new, sort of born somehow. I’ve had a heart to heart with myself, all parts of myself, and I’ve got an answer. It’s kinda scary, knowing something after so long of not knowing anything. Or feeling like I don’t know a thing.”

            “What’s that?”

            Harley covered Ivy’s hands with her own, smiling up at her and staring at her like she was made of every star in the sky, every ounce of sun in the morning.

            “We love you,” Harley chuckled, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Every inch of me, inside and out, every part of me. You’re patient and kind and parts of me that I thought were gone want you to be with us forever, or however long you want us. Want me. God this is a mess, words ain’t my forte. If you want me to shut up I will, but I just—”

            Ivy captured Harley’s lips in a passionate kiss, half-dragging her up to her knees to tangle their tongues together. Harley laced her fingers in Ivy’s hair, so soft and warm against her battered hands, and whimpered into the kiss. A whimper which Pamela misinterpreted, because she pulled back, head down and eyes cast in shadow.

            “I need to treat your wounds,” she twined her fingers with Harley’s. “Follow me, up to the…”

            “Bedroom?” Harley finished for her, a wry smile on her face.

            Pamela only nodded.

            Harley followed her, their hands still neatly gripped together, up the stairs to a single floor loft where a queen-size bed sat across from a large, uncovered window. The morning view was probably beautiful, like something out of a postcard. Every second she spent in this house, the more Harley saw what Ivy saw in it.

            Ivy’s hands were suddenly on Harley’s hips, her face buried in the crook of her neck. Harley tensed, shivering and preparing for an assault of kisses, but Ivy only lifted the shirt off of her, turning her around so she was no longer facing her.

            “Tease,” Harley muttered as she blushed, still shaking just a little.

            The salve on Ivy’s hands was cold and numbing. Harley sighed and leaned back into her touch, fully aware of the fact that she was topless, that it would take only an inch for Ivy’s hands to graze her breasts. But Ivy was respectful. She withdrew her hands and began pressing bandages against Harley’s back.

            “Hey, Red?” Harley stared out the window, at the full moon hanging high over Gotham in the distance. She bit her lip. “Do you think…do you think he’s dead?”

            Ivy’s hands paused. “Possibly. He’s survived similar before. Do you care?”

            “I…” Harley’s breath hitched. “Don’t be mad, but I do. I can’t explain it, but I…we had history.”

            “Do you still love him?”

            Harley faltered, but nodded, whimpering again, but in a different way. “I think I do.”

            There was a long stretch of silence, followed by the sound of the bedsprings compressing. Harley turned and found Ivy on the bed, her hand outstretched toward her, expression somber but gentle.

            “C’mere,” said Ivy. “C’mon.”

            Harley rushed over and fell on her, arms wrapped around Ivy tight, her face buried in her chest, next to her heartbeat. Gentle hands stroked down Harley’s back, sending shivers up her spine.

            “But I do love you,” Harley blubbered. “So much, all my heart. More parts of me love you than ever loved or wanted him. I choose you, Pamela. I chose you, and I think I’d do it again. In the tunnel, I had a choice and I took it. I tried to imagine my life without you and couldn’t, I just couldn’t.”

            Ivy once again caught Harley’s lips in a passionate kiss and eased her back onto the bed. Her hands, small and freckled, but still strong and warm, roamed over her. Harley slipped her hands under Ivy’s shirt, but Ivy sat up, tying her hair up and lifting her own shirt over her head. Harley covered her face, as though that would stop it from burning up at the sight of her.

            “God, Red,” Harley laughed into her palms. “You’re so beautiful.”

            Pamela’s taste in lingerie was unexpected; gentle pink and blue lace broke up the pattern of her freckles. A slight blush stained her cheeks a similar shade to her flushed lips, and her eyes bore into Harley’s with a hunger both familiar and foreign.

            Desperation flooded Harley, the events of the past few days rushing over in hurried fragments. She latched onto Pamela and held onto her tight, kissing her firmly. Pamela smiled into the kiss, and allowed Harley to lower her back onto the bed. In a blind rush of passion, Harley unhooked Pamela’s bra and sank herself into her, kissing so many inches of her, experimenting with taking her full breasts in her hands.

            “I love you,” Harley whimpered into Ivy’s skin, hands sinking into that soft hair of hers as they kissed. “I love you. I love you. So beautiful, and soft, and kind, and patient. I’ve been so bad to you, Red, so mean. I am cruel, I am. I’m sorry.”

            It took only seconds for Harley to bare all of Pamela to her. The sight of her nearly knocked all the senses from Harley, her consciousness. Tears filled her eyes and her lips developed an uncharted hunger, desperate for skin-to-skin touch. She kissed every inch of Pamela, reveling in every whimper and sigh permeating from those soft, flushed lips above her. Each time she said Harley’s name— _Harleen Harleen Harleen_ —she felt new, felt blessed.

            “May I?” Harley asked, her fingers covering the trembling and moistened petals of Ivy’s warm entrance. “Let me please you, Pamela, I want to feel home.”

            Ivy captured Harley’s lips in a passionate kiss and moaned into Harley’s mouth as her fingers clumsily slid into the smooth folds. Every buck and twist of Pamela’s hips emboldened Harley, and she redoubled her efforts to have Ivy feeling good, to make her girl see stars.

            With a final stroke and deep kiss, Pamela climaxed, her thighs clamping around Harley’s curling fingers. Harley helped her through seconds and then thirds before Ivy finally stopped squirming, her face flushed and body glistening. After a moment, she sat up, pushing Harley into the pillows and kissing her without a word.

            Pamela’s skin glowed in the bedside lamplight, a gentle source of illumination like a beam of sunlight peeking through cracks in clouds.

            “…Sunshine,” Harley murmured, hands outstretched toward her, desperate for that gentle contact she’d pined for all these years. “You’re like the sun, Pamela.”

            Ivy leaned down, her hands on either side of Harley’s head. As if she needed to pin Harley. “Call me that again.”

            “Pamela,” Harley swallowed.

            Ivy kissed her neck. “Again?”

            “Pamela,” Harleen trembled.

            A kiss, a little lower. Nimble fingers trailed over Harley’s abdomen before twining with Harley’s own, once again a tactic to keep Harley pinned in place.

            “Hey,” Harley breathed, twisting a little to get Ivy’s attention. “You don’t gotta hold on so tight, Red. I’m not goin’ anywhere, not ever again. You’ve got me.”

            Ivy’s expression stiffened before relaxing into a soft, unguarded smile. She released Harley’s hands and stroked Harley’s cheek. “You’ve got me, too.”

            Harley kissed her thumb. “Forever?”

            “Yeah,” Pamela pressed their foreheads together, “forever.”

            Harley laughed, her tongue between her teeth. “Gay.”

            “Yeah,” Pamela kissed her briefly before peppering kisses along her neck and collarbone, “very gay.”

            “ _Tres_ les-bean,” she laughed at her own joke possibly too hard, panting pleasantly as Pamela kissed the space between her breasts. “R-Red…”

            “Mm?” Ivy arched a brow, her long lashes brushing against the skin of her breasts and leaving goosebumps in their wake.

            “It’s like you’re kissing my heart,” Harley moaned quietly, fingers gently twining in Pamela’s hair.

            Pamela looked up at Harley, eyes narrow.

            “What?” Harley asked, suddenly self-conscious, aware of how close to naked she and Ivy were.

            “You are,” Ivy resumed kissing a line down her stomach, “so cute. So, so cute.” She cupped her hands around Harley’s rear. “My life would have been so much easier if you had been even slightly less cute under that jester cap of yours, Harl. The moment I saw your face I knew I was stuck, in one way or another.”

            Harley bit her lip. “Do you regret it?”

            “Yes,” Ivy hooked her fingers in the waistband of Harley’s pants. “I regret every moment you weren’t mine.”

            “Yours?” Harley echoed, shifting her hips in a silent agreement with Ivy’s hands.

            “Yes,” Pamela dragged her sweatpants slowly down her hips, kissing the skin as it was revealed to her. “Mine,” she said in time with her kisses. “Mine. Mine. Mine. Only mine.”

            “Just yours,” Harley shivered. “No one else’s.”

            Ivy hesitated at Harley’s ankles, but shook her head and tugged the pants off anyway. “I take it back.”

            Harley’s heart leapt, not just from Pamela kissing her way along her trembling inner thighs. “Take what back?”

            “You don’t belong to just me,” she took soft hold of Harley’s hips, her thumbs hooked in her panties. “From today on, more than anyone else, you belong to yourself. It’s what I wanted for you all along, after all. Since we first met. Your independence.”

            Harley chuckled as if her heart wasn’t leaping out of her chest. “My _Quinn_ -dependence?”

            Ivy rolled her eyes and tugged once more on Harley’s panties. “May I, sweet pea?”

            “Heck yeah,” Harley lifted her hips. “Make love to me, Pamela.”

            Kissing her naval, Ivy slipped the last shred of clothing left to Harley’s body off her legs and tossed them somewhere over her shoulder. Harley expected her to go right in, as she was certainly ready for the main event, but to her surprise Pamela pulled back, hands over her mouth in an expression Harley had only ever seen her direct at her plants. She stared at Harley with muted awe and satisfaction.

            “God, Harl,” her voice was throaty and strained, “you’re so beautiful.”

            Harley reflexively closed her thighs and half-covered herself with her arms. “Am not.”

            “You are to me,” Ivy placed both hands on either side of her head again, staring into Harley. “Look at me, Harl. All these years, of watching men stare at you like they want to pin you to the wall and have their way with you, and now I finally can look at you the way you deserve.”

            “What? Like you also want to pin me to the wall and have your way with me?” Harley deflected with a joke, shaking ever so slightly.

            “That, certainly.” Ivy agreed, kissing into Harley’s neck. “And like you’re something I can actually work at protecting.” Her fingers slipped gently between Harley’s closed thighs. “Have you ever…before me?”

            “Not with a woman,” Harley’s lips were shaking. “Have you…?”

            “Once,” Ivy kissed her slowly, as though trying to steady Harley’s trembling. “Never went that far with a man, but I could with a woman. It’s how I figured I was a lesbian.”

            “Anyone I know, or…?”

            “Does it matter?” Ivy caressed her cheek.

            “No,” Harley shook her head. “I just hope they were good to you, Red. You deserve to be treated good.”

            Pamela’s cheeks went red, blotting out her freckles in a way that made Harley want to kiss and kiss and kiss her. She slipped Harley’s thighs apart with her knee and cupped Harley’s breasts in soft hands. Harley squeaked at the sudden intimate connections remade with their skin.

            “I don’t know what I deserve, Harl,” she teased her knee against the quivering juncture between Harley’s thighs. “I sure as hell know I don’t deserve you, but we have each other anyway.”

            Harley whimpered, holding onto Ivy’s arms. “Fate’s kind.”

            Ivy kissed Harley briefly. “Maybe she is.”

            Pamela kissed down Harley’s torso once more, stopping just short of the soft hairs that grew just above her quivering place. She laced their fingers together as she nestled between Harley’s thighs, her shoulders propping Harley’s hips up in a satisfying angle.

            “Tell me when you’re ready,” said Ivy, her thumbs slowly stroking Harley’s. “Tell me you want me to make you feel good.”

            “It’s funny,” Harley panted, anticipation making her tremble. “You’re the one who almost died, but you’re the one making me feel better.”

            “Harley…”

            Harley shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Make love to me, Pamela. Make me feel good. Make me feel home.”

            The moment Pamela kissed into Harley’s sex Harley began to weep, a smile on her face. Pamela pulled back, but Harley urged her on. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt so safe, so cradled and warm and comfortable. Harley wrapped her legs around Ivy’s shoulders, wanting to pull her in closer, closer, closer.

            Pamela’s tongue rolled like waves in an ocean, and Harley could feel herself get pulled in deeper and deeper into the depths of Ivy’s secret heart, until she was swallowed up, drowning in her warmth.

            When she came, she was already panting Ivy’s name over and over, worshipping her in the way Pamela was bent at her alter, praying at the side of the bed in the moonlight. Ivy crawled up and held her, kissing her through the throes of the pleasurable aftermath. Harley buried her face in Ivy’s neck, still trembling and tingling from head to toe.

            “I…” Harley panted, clinging to Ivy, feeling like she was drifting away, and she wanted to take Pamela with her. “I love you.”

            Ivy drew a blanket over them and pulled Harley in flush against her. “I love you, too.”

            Harley immediately perked up. “Say it again.”

            “Really?” Ivy sighed.

            “Please?”

            “Harleen,” Ivy cupped her cheek and kissed her. “I love you, too.”

            Once again, Pamela fell asleep first, her soft breathing gently brushing against Harley’s scalp. Harley stared out the window as the sunrise threaded along Gotham’s skyline, framing each building in pink and gold. She wouldn’t sleep for another few hours. Morning was coming, and this time she was determined to see Ivy bathed in it, turned gold in the glow of a morning, of a full and clear light.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo this was a commission from someone from Tumblr, find my other works on the site at amanda-jp dot tumblr dot com/fics, idk if I can make urls in the end notes so you'll have to do a bit of leg work, sorry :p


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